A: This time of year, most of us are suffering with some cabin fever—including your pond fish. After being cooped up all winter long in a temporary indoor aquarium or tub, they’re ready to swim back to their spacious outdoor home.

But before you relocate your fish, you have some work to do first. The best time to return them to the pond is several weeks after you’ve done all the necessary chores to prepare for their homecoming. To make things easy, check out our four-step checklist:

Spring Cleaning: First, clean out your dormant pond. Remove any debris that has settled over the past few months, and perform a thorough spring cleanout to remove winter buildup. This will give your finned friends a nice place to come home to—and minimize algae growth in the spring.

Jump Start Filtration: About a month before you plan to return your fish to the pond, start your filtration system and let it run without fish. Turn on your mechanical filter and seed your filter pads with beneficial bacteria, such as Microbe-Lift® PL Gel, to speed the colony’s growth (but first make sure the water temperature is above 55° Fahrenheit with your pond thermometer). Keep in mind that in the spring, a filter can take four to six weeks to become established, so adding fish without adequate filtration established can result in quick algae formation.

Test Your Water: While your pond is cycling, periodically check your water chemistry with a PondCare® Master Test Kit to ensure the pond water is balanced and pH, ammonia and nitrate levels are safe for fish.

Acclimate Fish: The final step before re-homing your fish is to help them get used to the pond’s water temperature, which will likely be colder than their winter housing. Carry your fish out in a bucket and slowly add water from the pond to the bucket at 10- to 15-minute intervals, using your pond thermometer to check the water temperature as you go. This shock-prevention technique will allow them to adjust slowly—and safely—to their outdoor digs.

Your fish may become stressed during the indoor-to-outdoor transition, but you can keep it to a minimum by preparing their home and making sure they’re as healthy as possible in advance of their relocation. Have fun moving!

Pond Talk: Do you notice a change in your fishes’ behavior when they transition from indoors to outdoors?

What’s the best way to introduce new fish to my pond?
Chelsea – Eagan, MN

So you’ve made the decision to invite a few new friends to your home, but are you getting more than you bargained for? As is true with any purchase, you want to make sure you are getting quality before you hand over your hard-earned dollars. Inspect the fish you intend to purchase for symptoms of illness or poor health. Look over their fins, mouth, and gills for blemishes, discoloration, or signs of fin rot and check their body for growths, loose or missing scales, or other blemishes as they may be an early indicator of disease or parasites. Take a few moments to observe your prospect’s behavior to make sure they are active and having no mobility hindrances.

Your newly purchased fish are typically handed over to you in an oxygenated plastic bag or container to allow adequate time to transport them to their new home. While it may be tempting to just dump them into your water garden upon your return home, you will want to make sure your pond is ready to accommodate its new inhabitants before you begin their acclimation process. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Make sure the water in your pond is free from potential fatal heavy metals and chlorine and replenish the protective slime coating of your fish by adding Stress Reducer PLUS during your water changes.

To help prevent disease and reduce fish stress in your new tenants, add Pond Salt to the water between your water changes. To ensure the well being of your Aquatic Plants, only add 1 1/4 cups per 100 gallons of pond water.

You can purchase a Master Test Kit to verify acceptable pH and Nitrate levels in the pond.

You can prevent many potential health issues throughout your fish population by simply maintaining a clean and healthy pond. You can read more about pond maintenance here.

Now that the pond is ready for the addition of fish, it is time to get your finned friends ready for the big show. You will want to gradually equalize the temperature of the water your fish are currently occupying with that of the water in your pond. If the container carrying your fish floats, go ahead and place it in your pond. As the bag bobbles around in your pond, the water inside will start balancing with the outside water temperature. This process should take no longer than 30 minutes.

During this time frame, slowly add small amounts of water from the pond into the container which will allow your new fish time to acclimate to the chemistry of your pond water. Most of us have, at one time or another, jumped into a pool too early in the summer only to find that the water is unimaginably cold. Those of you who’ve been in that situation understand why you will want to take your time with the acclimation process. Now that the water on both sides of the container is the same and the fish have had time to try out the make up of the water in the pond, you are clear to release them into their new environment! Take a few moments throughout the day to check in on the pond and monitor the behavior of the newly introduced fish. Active and curious fish are happy and healthy fish.

Pond Talk: What rituals do you use to ensure safe transport of fish into your new pond environment?

When faced with an outbreak of weeds in their pond some pond owners tend to rush into buying aquatic herbicides and algaecides in an attempt to clear up the pond as fast as possible. While we agree with the idea that your weeds need to disappear on the double, you want to make sure you take some time out to identify your intruder. When you know what you are dealing with your can then chose a product to treat it that will give you the best bang for your buck. If you are having trouble identifying a particular weed you can e-mail a couple close up pictures to The Pond Guy® at weedid@thepondguy.com or check out our Weed ID Guide.

What’s The Difference?

Knowing is half the battle in your war against aquatic weeds. So what do you need to know about Naiad to correctly identify it in a line-up of other unruly pond perpetrators? Naiad is an annual plant that branches profusely and forms very dense stands of rooted submerged vegetation. Leaves are dark green to greenish-purple, ribbon-like, opposite or in a whorl of three, mostly less than 1/2 inch long and 1/8 inch wide. Single seeds are found encased in the leaf sheath. Southern naiad reproduces by seeds and fragmentation. Flowers are at the base of the leaves but so small that they can only be observed with magnification. While Naiad is often confused with Chara at first glance, Chara has a strong, unpleasant odor and a crunchy texture that sets it apart from its counterpart. Chara also is very easy to pull out since it has no attached root base.

Pick Your Pony

You will find a stable full of products available for treating Naiad each with their own application methods and water use restrictions. Hydrolthol 191 for example is a granular that sinks to the bottom of the pond and is applied with a hand spreader. It carries water use restrictions such as a 3 day fish consumption restriction and a 25 day irrigation restriction. Ultra PondWeed Defense® on the other hand is a liquid aquatic herbicide that is applied via a Tank Sprayer and carries only a 5 day irrigation restriction. Read each herbicides application instructions, water use restrictions and dosage rates to determine which product is best for you. In addition to Hydrothol and Ultra Pondweed Defense®, Sonar™ A.S. can also be a viable option for treating Naiad.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served Warm

For optimal results you will want to treat your pond when your water temps are above 50°F. Waiting for warmer weather in late Spring and early Summer ensures that the weeds in your pond are actively growing and will eagerly take the chemical you add to the water. Once the weeds are killed it is then safe for you to rake them out of the pond using a Pond & Beach Rake or something similar. Keeping your ponds nutrient load in check with MuckAway™ and PondClear™ and proper Aeration will make sure you spend less time wrestling weeds in your pond and more time enjoying your ponding season.